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Corinthian Metalworking an Inlaid Fulcrum Panel

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Corinthian Metalworking an Inlaid Fulcrum Panel CORINTHIAN METALWORKING AN INLAID FULCRUM PANEL (PLATES135 and 136) TN 1976, excavationsat Corinth were conductedin the so-called Roman Cellar Building, which lies south of the south tower of the West Shops and just southwestw of the Roman forum proper.1The Roman Cellar Building has been convincinglyidentified as a restaurant or tavern,which was damagedby an earthquakein A.D.22/23, during the reign of Tiberius. Potteryfrom a ground-floorpantry bears strong testimonyto Corinth'sstrategic position on the east-west trade routes:besides many locally made wares, there are importsfrom Etruria or Rome, South Italy and Sicily, southwesternAsia Minor and the islands, and Syria.2 Near the pantry, on the tavern'sbasement stairway, a decoratedbronze panel was exca- vated (Fig. 1, P. 135:a).33It is shaped like a truncatedboomerang; the roundedright end has a nail hole in it; the left end is broken straight across.All but the left end is surroundedby a plain raised border of varying width. The panel is inlaid with two metals in an elaborate floral design;its back is undecoratedbut preservestraces of the wood to which the panel was nailed.4 The panel would have been set into the fulcrum, or curved bronze end, of the wooden frameworkfor the headrestor footrestof a dining couch, a K\ALVT.A fulcrum might be further ornamentedby a finial or a bust at either end. In fact, the break at the left edge of this piece may be at thehepoint of attachmentfor such a decoration. Analysis by X-ray fluorescencespectrometry yielded the informationthat the back of the bronzepanel contains5 percenttin and 1 percentlead, whereas the fronthas a slightly higher tin content. The bronze is the base for decorationsin three colors, achieved by using three differentmaterials: copper, silver with some lead content,and niello. The niello was applied to the surface,and the techniqueknown as damascenewas used to inlay the copperand silver in channelscut in the bronze.5That the raised borderof the panel is green (malachiticoxide) See C. K. Williams, II, "Corinth,1974: Forum Southwest,"Hesperia 44,1975 (pp. 1-50), pp. 9-10 and idem, "Corinth1976: Forum Southwest,"Hesperia 46, 1977 (pp. 40-81), pp. 58-61. 2 K. S. Wright, "A Tiberian Pottery Deposit from Corinth,"Hesperia 49, 1980, pp. 135-177. 3 I am grateful to Charles K. Williams, II for allowing me to publish the object,to Nancy Bookidisfor her assistance with my study of it, and to both of them as well as George L. Huxley, Richard S. Mason, and Harriet C. Mattusch for their commentsand advice. A preliminaryversion of this paper was presentedat the 10. InternationaleTagung uiberAntike Bronzen in Freiburg, 1988. Other finds from the stairway include 1st-century(after Christ) coins, Megarian bowls, a piece of Arre- tine pottery, and early Roman red ware (basket no. 164). 4 Corinth MF 1976-24. H. 0.133 m., max. pres. L. 0.184 m., Th. 0.005 m. Becauseit was undergoingcon- servation,the fulcrum was not included in the preliminaryexcavation reports. The hole at the right end of the piece (Diam. 0.008 m.) held a nail to pin it to the wooden framework,and a more irregularhole at the left end of the piece may have held a second nail. 5 RichardJones of the Fitch Laboratory,the British School at Athens, analyzed the metals. For a descriptionof damasceneand its variations,see C. Piccot-Boube,"Les lits de bronze de Mauretanie Tingitane," BAMaroc 4, 1960 (pp. 189-271), pp. 235-238, 243-246. Marina Castoldi brought to my atten- tion a cup decoratedwith the same combinationof metal inlays and niello; see M. Castoldi, "Recipientiin American School of Classical Studies at Athens is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve, and extend access to Hesperia ® www.jstor.org 526 CAROL C. MATTUSCH Bronze Copper Silver E Niello N FIG. 1. Corinth MF 1976-24. Computer-generateddrawing, based on digitized photo, courtesy of Avrim Katzman. but the area within it reddish (cupriticoxide) is the result of deeper mechanicalcleaning of the latter. This cleaning,which was neededto uncoverthe inlays, also revealedcuprite in the corrosionproducts, which is not evidentin levels closerto the surface.6 The plain outer border is defined along its inner edge by a thin inlaid copper strip enclosing the richly ornamented floral panel.7 In the central angle of the panel are two U-shapedpairs of silver acanthusbuds, the beginning of an elaboratedesign that swirls out- wards in both directions,making a design the two parts of which are mirror images. From each pair of silver buds emerges a silver calyx, which producessilver tendrils that curl out- wards in opposite directions,forming three volutes that in turn encircleflowers. The outer- most flower on each side has a silver centerand four broad,roughly triangularcopper petals bronzo d'eta romana in Lombardia:La coppa ageminata di Muralto," Rivista archeologicadell'antica pro- vincia e diocesi di Como 161, 1979, pp. 57-65, pls. VI-VIII: 2nd to 1st centuriesB.C. 6 1 am indebtedto Stella Bouzaki for describingto me her conservationof the piece and for sharing with me these observationsabout the metal oxides. 7 Width of bronze rim 0.003-0.013 m., width of copper inlay 0.001 m., depth of channel for inlay 0.001 m. CORINTHIAN METALWORKING: AN INLAID FULCRUM PANEL 527 with silver borders. Black strips of niello mark the separationbetween petals. The second flower is a multicoloreddaisy with a silver center and twelve petals alternatingfrom copper to silver to niello. The flower closest to the angle of the panel is a large heartshapedcopper bud with a large, roughly round-to-ovalsilver center. Most of the bud on the right is pre- served, but only a little of the silver center of the matching bud on the left is still in place. Traces of other silver tendrils and copper leaves and buds remain in the field. The decorativemotif used on this panel s both versatile and adaptable,and it is often seen. It developedfrom a widespread and long-lived traditionwhich is traceablein various forms and in various media from the 5th centuryB.C. onwards.The motif recalls the decora- tionf the akroteriaof the Parthenon,as well as the usual ornamenton Corinthiancapitals. One-half of the design fills the narrow triangular space between the marble coffers of the tholos at Epidauros.Another version of the motif, not unlike the one on the Corinth panel, can be seen in the borderof the famous stag-hunt mosaic in Pella and in the lowest panel on the large gold larnax from Tomb II at Vergina. In Early Imperial Rome, the lower panels of reliefs on the Ara Pacis providethe best-known and some of the most luxuriant examples of the symmetricalversion of the design.8 The acanthus, tendril, and flower motif is well suited to the shape of a fulcrum panel, and the one from Corinth is by no means the only example. A completeand well-preserved fulcrum from a couch found in the House of Menander at Pompeii has essentially the same panel decoration:acanthus buds, tendrils, and volutes encircleflowers; these acanthus buds are opening, and the flowers all have more or less the same six-petaled design (PI. 136:a). The details are rendered with more precision than on the Corinth panel, and the inlay appears to consist of silver alone.9 Another fulcrum, in a European private collection, has the same panel design, though perhaps more delicate, but is evidently inlaid with copper and silver (PI. 136:b).10A third, in the ConservatoriMuseum in Rome, has more ornate buds and flowers and has inlays which are uniformlycoppery in color (PI. 135:b).11 Of the many ancient authors who refer to the high quality of the bronze that was once producedin Corinth, it is Pliny who has the mnostto say. He actually begins his book on bronzes by saying that Corinthian bronze is more valuable than silver and almost more so than gold. His sourcesmay not be quite accuratein suggestingthat the Corinthianalloy was first mixed by chancewhen the city was burnedby Mummius in 146 B.C., but he is surely on firmer ground when he says that Corinthian bronze is the most highly praised bronze 8 For a discussionof the motif in Roman wall painting, see Yves Perrin, "Un motif decoratifexceptionnel dansle IVe style:le bandeaua rinceaux,"RA 1985,pp. 205-230.. 9 Naples, ArchaeologicalMuseum, inv. 78614. See A. Maiuri, La Casa del Menandro e il suo tesorodi argenteria,Rome 1932, pp. 423-427; G. M. A. Richter, The Furnitureof the Greeks,Etruscans and Romans, London 1966, figs. 532-534; IIbronzo dei Romani:Arredo e Suppellettile,L. P. B. Stefanelli,ed., Rome 1990, no. 34, p. 264, and fig. 142, p. 176. 10See A. Greifenhagen, "Bronzeklineim Pariser Kunsthandel,"RM 45, 1930, pp. 137-165, pl. 39 and B. Barr-Sharrar,The Hellenistic and Early Imperial DecorativeBust, Mainz 1987, no. C 20, pl. 6. 11Rome ConservatoriMuseum, inv. 1075. See A Catalogue of the Ancient Sculptures Preserved in the Municipal Collectionsof Rome: The Sculpturesof the Palazzo dei Conservatori,H. StuartJones, ed., Oxford 1926, no. 12, pp. 178-179, pls. 64-66; Greifenhagen, op. cit., no. 24, p. 144, pl. 49; Stefanelli (footnote 9 above), no. 32, pp. 263-264 and fig. 247, p. 263. John Camp took photographsof this fulcrum for me in 1987 and shared with me his commentsabout it. 528 CAROL C. MATTUSCH known from earlier times, for he can easily cite individuals who coveted it (NH 34.1, 34.6-8, 34.48). Pliny even lists three separate Corinthian alloys which were used specifi- cally for utensils or vessels:one is white, with a brillianceclose to silver, and he believes that it contains much silver; the second is tawny like gold; and he thinks that the third must contain an equal mixture of both these metals (NH 34.8).12 Pliny (NH 34.14) and Livy (39.6.7) date the introductionof dining couches decorated with bronze to 187 B.c., when the Roman army returnedhome from Asia.
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